


The prisoner of the vault

by Pearlislove



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Dark, Dysfunctional Relationships, Gen, Hurt No Comfort, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-02
Updated: 2017-06-02
Packaged: 2018-11-08 03:09:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,288
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11072817
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pearlislove/pseuds/Pearlislove
Summary: "Without hope, without witness, without reward, I am you friend."The words spilled out of her mouth as tears burned in her eyes, and she felt stupid, but if this was truly her last moments then she needed to say it so that he would know.





	The prisoner of the vault

**Author's Note:**

> Missy & 12th Doctor hell dark thing-y before the new episode on Saturday 
> 
> TRIGGER WARNING: Obvious references to  
> self-harm

"Without hope, without witness, without **reward** , I am you friend."   
  
The words spilled out of her mouth as tears burned in her eyes, and she felt stupid, but if this was truly her last moments then she needed to say it so that he would know.

 

His face had showed no remorse, nor any acknowledgement of what she had said, and, before another moment could pass,he'd flicked the switch. Her mind and body had been flooded with excruciating pain, the torture increasing until the point where she could no longer feel it.   
  
_ She didn’t blame him. She never blamed Thete for anything. _ __  
  
If there was ever anyone she'd blame for anything, it would be herself and no one else. Because the only one to deserve blame and guilt and hurt, was her. Always her.   
  
The Doctor had never done anything wrong, and they both knew it. It was she who had gone astray. The very reason The Doctor had been fighting her for all this time, for longer than any alien in the galaxy could ever hope to count if they so spent every living moment doing it, was because of her. Was because he wanted to protect the good that she could no longer distinguish from the bad.   
  
She thinks of this as she sits in the vault. As she sits in darkness and misery and cry and cry and cry, at least for the first few years. When the pain of still existing, of being forced to be trapped in a limited space and live out her time there linearly, without a chance to do anything to change it at all, was so very heavy that she wasn’t sure she could do it.   
  
Back in the beginning, she'd hit her limbs against furniture and walls and seeking out all the pain that she could get, physically, just to escape the ever-present mental one that pressed on her mind like a drumbeat.   
  
Once, she'd made such a noise while throwing herself against the door over and over, that The Doctor finally had found himself bound to check on her.   
  
But he had not come first. He'd sent Nardole, the fat little robot from Darillium, to look after her and he, like the little snitch he was, had in turn gotten The Doctor when he'd found her passed out and bleeding.   
  
That's when he put in the piano. She'd woken up with a terrible headache and a huge plastered across her forehead and

The Doctor had been sitting at said piano, playing Vivaldi for her as if it was nothing unusual.   
  
When he saw she was awake, he'd given her a rundown of what happened while she was out, explaining how Nardole found her and everything. Finally, he asked to give her a physical check up. 

 

With only some hesitation, she had agreed, undressing quickly and trying to make it seem as though she was trying to tease or embarrass him - after all, she felt it wouldn't do to let on just how hurtful the punishment had been to her mind.   
  
What she hadn't counted on, however, was the shock and sympathy and anger the sight of her bare flesh had been for The Doctor. He'd flinched with her when she pulled the clothes over fresh cuts and bruises, and rushed forward to grab her clothes as they fell from the thin frame down towards the floor, only to drop the again a moment later and catch her instead.   
  
His hands mercilessly wrapped around her arms, picking up her naked body and pinning it against the wall,holding her there.   
  
"Don’t" He'd said, his grip and his eyes softening, thumbs brushing over green and yellow and purple and black bruises that covered her skin like paint on a canvas. His thumb stopped by a long, jagged cut from the night before that had barely scabbed, pushing at it and producing a few droplets of crimson blood that slid down her elbow. She shivered at his touch, turning her head away and refusing him an answer.    
  
He'd sighed, his warm breath - still smelling of burning stars and long forgotten civilisations after all this time - tickling her face, and before she could regret her decision and give him an answer, he'd spoken again."You don’t get to do this anymore. You don’t have the right. Enjoy the piano." Just like that, he'd dropped her like a ragdoll against the floor, leaving her there naked and shaking from more than just cold and with new bruises forming on her already tender skin.

 

_ She screamed in frustration and rage when those bruises, that she had been granted by The Doctor, faded. _   
  
That night, she'd cried more than ever before, but she'd also played the piano for the first time. Her tones had been soft and hesitant at first, but she'd found herself enjoying the sounds filling the air around her none the less. Soon, her music grew stronger and bolder and as she grew more confident as a piano player she found that her need to physically establish her mental agony lessened.   
  
Instead of having her sharp and cunning mind Calculating the damage that could be done with the meager possession she was offered inside the vault, she worked out complex melodies that her nimble fingers played out with increasing ease.   
  
It sooth her mind and The Doctor’s worries and it worked, settling them into a comfortable routine. Every night, he came to tell her stories, and for his ears only she played music of her own invention.   
  
It worked, soothed the souls of both of them, and over time Missy stopped longing for the world outside the vault, and The Doctor stopped longing to travel beyond the stars.

 

For a while, they were as content as two lonely, damaged time lords could ever be.

 

Eventually, however, what Missy always knew was going to happen happened.

 

_ The Doctor found a new companion _

 

Like turning on a switch, his longing for what was out there increased, encouraged by the silly new girl’s foolish behaviour, and from what  she heard from Nardole, she knew not even his promise to her and the executioners had been enough to keep him on Earth.

 

For the first time in years, new bruises appeared on her skin that day, and she cried for the first time in decades, wishing to have something back that was never really hers.    
  


But The Doctor didn’t abandon her completely. Though it pushed her to a point where the piano was not always enough, he did come back, and Missy kept what little calm had not been destroyed the moment she heard he’d found a new companion by listening to his continued stories and through continuing to play him her music.

 

_ It was not as good as before, but it worked _

 

It worked, until one day, he came to her door, more forlorn that he had been since he was exiled on Earth. He sounded scared, and lost and afraid of what was happening and what was to happen. She hadn't read that kind of emotions in his mind since he left Gallifrey.

 

“Something's coming, Missy, and I'm blind. How can I save them when I'm lost to the dark?” She can hear his hands pushing against the door on the other side, his entire body resting against the solid wall between them. Shakily, more scared than she wants to be, she does the same. She leans in against a touch that was only there in the invisible mind-space that they shared, and she sends him a thought. She shares it from her mind to his, not as a threat, but a comfort.

  
She was going to get out of the vault.   



End file.
